Battalion
Banned
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2005
Boston 1854
Abolitionist Mob Kills Federal Marshall In Attempt To Free Runaway Slave
"As a slave owned by Charles Suttle of Alexandria, Virginia, Anthony Burns had many privileges. He was allowed to hire himself out. He supervised the hiring out of four other slaves owned by Suttle. He had the freedom to take on additional jobs, as long as he paid his master a fee. He joined a church, where he became a preacher. He learned to read and write. Still, Anthony Burns was not content. At an early age he had learned that 'there [was] a Christ who came to make us free' and felt 'the necessity for freedom of soul and body.' In 1854, he took steps to find freedom. While working in Richmond, Burns boarded a ship heading north, to the city of Boston.
Burns arrived in Boston in March -- a fugitive, but free. This new-found freedom, however, would be short-lived....
Suttle travelled to Boston to claim his 'property,'....Boston abolitionists, vehemently opposed to the Slave Act, rallied to aid Burns, who was being held on the third floor of the federal courthouse. Two separate groups met at the same time to discuss Burn's recapture: a large group, consisting mainly of white abolitionists, met at Fanueil Hall; a smaller group, mostly blacks, met in the basement of the Tremont Temple.
The meeting at the Tremont Temple was quickly over. Those present decided to march to the courthouse and release Burns, using force if necessary. The meeting at Fanueil Hall lasted much longer. The group there debated the course of action. When the intentions of the Tremont Temple gathering were announced, however, the meeting abruptly ended. About two hundred citizens left Fanueil Hall and headed to the courthouse.
The crowd outside the courthouse quickly grew from several hundred to about two thousand. A small group of blacks, led by white minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, charged the building with a beam they used as a battering ram. They succeeded in creating a small opening, but only for a moment. A shot was fired. A deputy shouted out that he had been stabbed, then died several minutes later. Higginson and a black man gained entry, but were beaten back outside by six to eight deputies....
Burns was convicted of being a fugitive slave on June 2, 1854. That same day, an estimated 50,000 lined the streets of Boston, watching Anthony Burns walk in shackles toward the waterfront and the waiting ship.
A black church soon raised $1300 to purchase Burns' freedom. In less than a year Anthony Burns was back in Boston."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2915.html
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Boston 1854
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
"...scarcely a month passes in which there are not one or more vessels cleared at this port, which embark at once in the Slave-trade and land their cargoes on the coast of Cuba. The facts given in evidence on this trial show how easily this is done, and with what impunity, so long as all the parties engaged in it are satisfactorily paid for keeping silent."
Boston Daily Times, 10 November 1854
"We have not the slightest doubt that there are hundreds of Portuguese -merchants and others in this City, who are constantly and largely engaged in this traffic; - who carry it on as their regular business, - who grow rich by it, and live in splendid style and claim and hold high rank in the rich circles of our metropolis by virtue of the wealth thus acquired. We believe this fact is very generally known, - and that not a month passes in which vessels are not cleared at the Customs House, of whose destination and employment in the Slave-trade, the houses who ship crew for them, and even the officials who prepare and sign their papers are morally certain. This City and Baltimore are now, and have been for years, the great head-quarters of the African Slave-trade. In the face of all our laws, - in defiance of our treaty stipulations and in contempt of armed cruisers and men-of-war, that piratical traffic is largely carried on by ships fitted out in American ports, and under the protection of the American flag. If the authorities plead that they cannot stop this, they simply confess their own imbecility. If they will not do it, the moral guilt they incur is scarcely less than that of the Slave-traders themselves."
Boston Daily Times, 24 November 1854
http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/alan_j_singer/Gateway%20Slavery%20Guide%20PDF%20Files/5.%20Abolition_Complicity%201827-65/5.%20Documents%201827-1865/1854b.%20(NYT)%20.ith,%20Slave%20Tr.pdf
~
One runaway slave incites a mob to kill...
...yet the trans-Atlantic slave trade operates with near impunity.
~
Abolitionist Mob Kills Federal Marshall In Attempt To Free Runaway Slave
"As a slave owned by Charles Suttle of Alexandria, Virginia, Anthony Burns had many privileges. He was allowed to hire himself out. He supervised the hiring out of four other slaves owned by Suttle. He had the freedom to take on additional jobs, as long as he paid his master a fee. He joined a church, where he became a preacher. He learned to read and write. Still, Anthony Burns was not content. At an early age he had learned that 'there [was] a Christ who came to make us free' and felt 'the necessity for freedom of soul and body.' In 1854, he took steps to find freedom. While working in Richmond, Burns boarded a ship heading north, to the city of Boston.
Burns arrived in Boston in March -- a fugitive, but free. This new-found freedom, however, would be short-lived....
Suttle travelled to Boston to claim his 'property,'....Boston abolitionists, vehemently opposed to the Slave Act, rallied to aid Burns, who was being held on the third floor of the federal courthouse. Two separate groups met at the same time to discuss Burn's recapture: a large group, consisting mainly of white abolitionists, met at Fanueil Hall; a smaller group, mostly blacks, met in the basement of the Tremont Temple.
The meeting at the Tremont Temple was quickly over. Those present decided to march to the courthouse and release Burns, using force if necessary. The meeting at Fanueil Hall lasted much longer. The group there debated the course of action. When the intentions of the Tremont Temple gathering were announced, however, the meeting abruptly ended. About two hundred citizens left Fanueil Hall and headed to the courthouse.
The crowd outside the courthouse quickly grew from several hundred to about two thousand. A small group of blacks, led by white minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, charged the building with a beam they used as a battering ram. They succeeded in creating a small opening, but only for a moment. A shot was fired. A deputy shouted out that he had been stabbed, then died several minutes later. Higginson and a black man gained entry, but were beaten back outside by six to eight deputies....
Burns was convicted of being a fugitive slave on June 2, 1854. That same day, an estimated 50,000 lined the streets of Boston, watching Anthony Burns walk in shackles toward the waterfront and the waiting ship.
A black church soon raised $1300 to purchase Burns' freedom. In less than a year Anthony Burns was back in Boston."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2915.html
~
Boston 1854
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
"...scarcely a month passes in which there are not one or more vessels cleared at this port, which embark at once in the Slave-trade and land their cargoes on the coast of Cuba. The facts given in evidence on this trial show how easily this is done, and with what impunity, so long as all the parties engaged in it are satisfactorily paid for keeping silent."
Boston Daily Times, 10 November 1854
"We have not the slightest doubt that there are hundreds of Portuguese -merchants and others in this City, who are constantly and largely engaged in this traffic; - who carry it on as their regular business, - who grow rich by it, and live in splendid style and claim and hold high rank in the rich circles of our metropolis by virtue of the wealth thus acquired. We believe this fact is very generally known, - and that not a month passes in which vessels are not cleared at the Customs House, of whose destination and employment in the Slave-trade, the houses who ship crew for them, and even the officials who prepare and sign their papers are morally certain. This City and Baltimore are now, and have been for years, the great head-quarters of the African Slave-trade. In the face of all our laws, - in defiance of our treaty stipulations and in contempt of armed cruisers and men-of-war, that piratical traffic is largely carried on by ships fitted out in American ports, and under the protection of the American flag. If the authorities plead that they cannot stop this, they simply confess their own imbecility. If they will not do it, the moral guilt they incur is scarcely less than that of the Slave-traders themselves."
Boston Daily Times, 24 November 1854
http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/alan_j_singer/Gateway%20Slavery%20Guide%20PDF%20Files/5.%20Abolition_Complicity%201827-65/5.%20Documents%201827-1865/1854b.%20(NYT)%20.ith,%20Slave%20Tr.pdf
~
One runaway slave incites a mob to kill...
...yet the trans-Atlantic slave trade operates with near impunity.
~
Bringing the